


the steve rogers flag of america

by thirteenghosts (newsbypostcard)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 07:37:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8004013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newsbypostcard/pseuds/thirteenghosts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Steve and Bucky take a leisurely stroll through memory lane in Brooklyn and come across the kind of flag that leads Bucky to try to convince Steve to take on a new, if somewhat less wholesome identity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the steve rogers flag of america

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in NY for the weekend and I saw this LGBT / American flag hybrid actually flying on Front St. in Brooklyn, and once I rifled through the requisite set of questions (namely: "what?" and "why?" and also, "what are the implications of conflating national identity with sexual orientation, exactly," and then all the way back to: "why?") I immediately thought of this dumb thing. So putting aside that I am not understanding the flag in question, exactly, here we are regardless.

  


  


"You been back to Brooklyn?" Steve had asked him, sudden and solemn.

It had come out of nowhere, but Bucky nodded as though expecting it. "Had to figure out what those memories were about somehow."

"Nostalgia tour, huh?"

"Something like that."

Steve had nodded too, then said, "You wanna go back?" A quiet question, thick with tension. "Just for a few days. See it together, you and me."

"Why?" Bucky asked.

"Why not?" Steve replied; and in the end that had been enough.

So now they're here, risking their necks, spending days walking through the Brooklyn streets they no longer know. These are quiet errands, finding old streets, houses, and haunts; they speak little, languish in tension, but intertwine their fingers as though to ground the other.

There's little to laugh about until they land on Front St. in the old manufacturing district and find some flag: striped with rainbow instead of red and white, 50 stars in the canton.

They stop dead in the sidewalk and stare at it, both struck by it at once.

"Huh," Steve says eventually, cocking his head.

"Boy," says Bucky. There's amusement in his voice for the first time in days. "America really lets you set the national tone sometimes, huh?"

"What do you mean?"

"They find out you're in a relationship with a man and change the whole damn flag."

Steve grins, sudden and full. "Come on."

"You come on. Look what you're captain of now."

"Not anymore."

"You sure? Looks like America wants you back."

"Well, too bad," Steve says, then adds: "This is ridiculous."

"Why? Does it not embody you?"

"This isn't about _me_." He redoubles his grip on Bucky's arm and pulls him forward down the street, keen to put an end to the conversation.

"It could be," Bucky says, but allows himself to be dragged along. "That could be your next uniform."

"I'm not getting a 'next uniform'."

"Instead of red, white, and blue you could be red, blue, orange…"

"I feel like there's an unreasonably large percentage of the country that might take issue with Captain America looking that openly camp."

"...Yellow, indigo..."

"Boy, you're really pushing for this, huh?"

"Here's an idea, Steve," Bucky muses, apparently immune to Steve's protests. "Rainbow suit, disco style."

"Oh, for crying out--"

"Bell bottoms, collar open wide to expose those pecs of yours…"

Steve rolls his eyes and gives himself over to it. "You think I could pull that off?"

"One massive slit, collar to navel." Bucky points somewhere decidedly lower than the navel. "Right down the centre."

"Ah. _Now_ I understand your motives."

"What motives? It's about representation, Rogers."

"I doubt that very much."

"I guarantee you, there is no better way to scream 'I can take a cock' than with a slutty rainbow leisure suit."

Steve stops walking and gives Bucky an extremely circumspect look. Bucky's laughing, giving him one of those rare genuine grins, and lets himself be reeled in when Steve pulls at him. "Still no?" he mutters, hand clenching in Steve's coat. "You saying that's not the impression you want to give? You're not bound by the constraints of Captain America anymore, Steve. You can be whoever you want."

"Including Captain Cockslut?"

" _Especially_ Captain Cockslut."

"Oddly enough," Steve says, "that doesn't sound that appealing."

"That's not what you said last night."

Steve's eyes bug, briefly. " _Bucky._ "

"If anyone's Captain Cockslut, it's you, that's all I'm trying to say. Once in a lifetime opportunity, Steve--"

"Enough."

"--to claim the title rightfully reserved for America's _biggest_ \--"

"No, thank you. I'm fine being Steve Rogers."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"If you don't jump on this now, someone else will."

"I'm willing to take that risk," Steve deadpans.

"Well, okay." Steve's not sure Bucky means to lean in but he does anyway, as though too fond to resist. "America's loss." 

"Maybe," Steve says, and tangles both his hands in Bucky's hair. "Your gain, though."

"I guess that's true," he agrees; and if it occurs to either of them that they're making out in their old streets of Brooklyn now backdropped by a rainbow flag of America, neither of them says a thing.

  



End file.
